When Seeing Is Believing: Visualization Effects on Regulating Savings Behavior

Eunice Kim, Yale University, USARavi Dhar, Yale University, USA

While prior research has examined how visualizing pursuing a goal or engaging in a specific goal-related behavior can facilitate goal pursuit, we propose, that merely visualizing oneself performing routine tasks that are unrelated to the goal at hand increases self-regulation. We demonstrate that visualization decreases feelings of anxiety, which can cause people to feel that a task is unmanageable. As anxiety decreases, and peacefulness increases, people re-affirm the importance of saving and are motivated to save. Furthermore, we compare and contrast visualization with incidental primes of elderly people, and show that the effect of visualization is distinct from priming.